1 / 10

Lemon v. Kurtzman

Lemon v. Kurtzman. 1971. Facts. PA law provided reimbursement to private schools Covered Teacher salaries Textbooks for non-religious courses. Issue. Does the PA law violate the establishment clause of the 1 st amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14 th amendment?

nissim-dennis
Download Presentation

Lemon v. Kurtzman

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Lemon v. Kurtzman 1971

  2. Facts • PA law provided reimbursement to private schools • Covered • Teacher salaries • Textbooks for non-religious courses

  3. Issue • Does the PA law violate the establishment clause of the 1st amendment and the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment? • 1st amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” • 14th amendment: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall… deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

  4. AltonLemon-ACLU (appellant) • Church affiliated schools promote a particular religion. • Programs for reimbursement are “excessive entanglement” by state. • Oversight of schools would be difficult.

  5. Listening to Lemon oral arguments 1. What subjects are mentioned? 2. How does a non-public school qualify for aid from the state? 3. What was the source of money used by Pennsylvania to pay the schools? 4. What question caused the court to laugh?

  6. Kurtzman: appellee • 15% salary supplement • Teacher’s teaching subjects offered in public schools • 25% of state’s students went to non-public schools - 95% of these were Catholic • Schools serving more than 20% of area students • No establishment of “state” religion

  7. Outcome • Court held that state program directly benefited parochial schools. • State supervision would produce excessive entanglement. • Created three-pronged test:

  8. Significance – created 3-pronged test • 1. Purpose of aid must be clearly secular. • 2. Primary effect of aid must neither advance nor inhibit religion. • 3. Aid must avoid “excessive entanglement” of government with religion.

  9. Opinion • “The substantial religious character of these church-related schools gives rise to entangling church-state relationships of the kind the Religion Clauses sought to avoid.” • Chief Justice Warren Burger (1971)

  10. Works Cited The Oyez Project, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602 (1971),http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1970/1970_89/ Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy, Edwards, Lineberry et. al. ThirteenthEdition. 2008 Supreme Court majority opinion by Chief Justice Warren Burger http://supreme.justia.com/us/403/602/case.html

More Related